Site Mobile Navigation

Hamilton Delights, but Morneau Prevails in the Derby

The Indians' Grady Sizemore hitting in the Home Run Derby.Credit
NickLaham/Getty Images

Josh Hamilton drew some laughter when he said he could be the first player to hit a home run that left Yankee Stadium. During a prodigious display, Hamilton nearly achieved that goal in the Home Run Derby on Monday night.

He crushed a ball off the Bank of America sign above the right-center-field bleachers that was not even his farthest of the night. That blast came while he hit a record-setting 28 home runs in the first round, but Hamilton could not conserve enough energy in the finals and lost, 5-3, to Minnesota’s Justin Morneau.

“I said after the first round, ‘If I don’t hit another ball out or if I don’t win this, I’m not going to be disappointed,’ ” said Hamilton, who hit 35 home runs over all to Morneau’s 22.

The fans had warmed to Hamilton and booed Morneau, who beat out Derek Jeter to win the American League Most Valuable Player award in 2006. At the end, they offered tepid applause when Hamilton’s final swing resulted in a grounder.

At one point in the first round, Hamilton hit 13 straight homers, including a 518-foot shot that landed in the second section of the upper reserved seats in right field. He broke the single-round record of 24 that Bobby Abreu set in 2005.

“I think everyone will remember Josh Hamilton’s 28 homers more than that I won the thing,” Morneau said.

The derby no longer interests baseball’s top sluggers — no Alex Rodriguez, no Albert Pujols, no Manny Ramírez — but it does attract bona fide All-Stars and interesting stories — like Hamilton, who has recovered from drug addiction to lead the majors in runs batted in at the All-Star break.

The capacity crowd did not seem energized until Hamilton, hitting last among the eight competitors, started spraying line drives and moon balls to right and right-center field.

“I was close, right?” Hamilton said of his prediction Monday morning. “I was trying to hit the subway.”

Photo

Minnesotas Justin Morneau won the Home Run Derby on Monday Night.Credit
Peter Foley/European Pressphoto Agency

The crowd chanted: “Hamilton! Hamilton!” and in front of their respective dugouts, Hamilton’s fellow All-Stars hugged each other and pointed in disbelief to where his homers landed.

“I rarely watch myself on highlights, but tonight I may have to,” Hamilton said.

Pitching to Hamilton was 71-year-old Clay Counsil, a volunteer coach who used to throw batting practice to Hamilton back in North Carolina. By the end of the first round, Hamilton already ranked 10th all-time.

In keeping with the final year at Yankee Stadium, baseball channeled Babe Ruth by adding a Call Your Shot promotion, which was originally intended for the Red Sox slugger David Ortiz. Since Ortiz is injured, the contest was altered so that the winner of the promotion, Bennett Hayes of Brimfield, Ill., would point to the stands and predict a home run, as Ruth is thought to have done during the 1932 World Series in Chicago, and hope the finalists hit a homer in that direction.

Neither did, but Hamilton, as it turned out, called a different one. Michael Young, his Texas teammate, asked him to try to hit that Bank of America sign, which Hamilton said looked “extremely far” away.

“I was like, O.K., I’ll try,” Hamilton said. “I wound up doing it.”

HOMETOWN RENDITION Stripped to the bare bones of his act, Adam Wilbur stood in the middle of the Javits Center on Monday morning without his Yankees jersey, without his sousaphone-playing twin brother, and most important, without his ukulele.

If he was going to win Major League Baseball’s “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” contest, he would have to do it a cappella. The props that had made his online video so popular among the voting fans could no longer be part of his gimmick. So on cue and off key, Wilbur, a high school teacher from Medford, N.Y., burst into his rendition of the song and won over the judges. A lifelong Yankee fan, Wilbur will now lead the 56,000 fans in song during the seventh-inning stretch of Tuesday’s All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

“You know, he’s a hometown guy,” said Bernie Williams, the former Yankees center fielder and current part-time musician, who was one of the three celebrity judges. “With his video and the way he engaged the crowd, he really got me.”

The project started in his mother’s backyard where, in 10 minutes and 3 takes, Wilbur and his brother Fred shot a two-minute clip of their rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” which turned 100 years old this year.

Wilbur beat out two other finalists who were also selected from hundreds of applicants on MLB.com, first by a panel, then by fans voting online for their top three. Although Wilbur said he was nervous singing in front of Williams on Monday — not to mention the stadium full of fans, All-Stars and Hall of Famers he will face Tuesday — he said that he had played tougher rooms before.

“I sang in front of students, and they’re the toughest audience,” he said. “If you can get up in front of kids and sing, then Yankee Stadium won’t be a problem.” JOSHUA ROBINSON

Photo

The Rangers' Josh Hamilton hit 28 homers in the first round, yet failed to win the overall contest.Credit
Barton Silverman/The New York Times

SHEETS LEAVES AN IMPRESSION Ben Sheets did not realize it at the time, but he was auditioning for a role as the starting pitcher for the National League when he struck out 11 Colorado Rockies in six innings last Wednesday. The Rockies’ manager, Clint Hurdle, is guiding the National League team, and he liked what he saw from Sheets.

“I’m real smart like that,” Hurdle said Monday, after naming Sheets to his first All-Star start. “I pick up on things pretty quick. We kept swinging and missing and I thought, ‘That’s a good pitch. If he repeats that in the All-Star Game, we’ll have a shot.’ ”

Sheets is 10-3 with a 2.85 earned run average. Tuesday’s game will be the first of his career at Yankee Stadium. Sheets’s team, the Milwaukee Brewers, has not played at Yankee Stadium since leaving the American League after the 1997 season.

“I know one thing, it’s going to be glowing as I pull up, and I’m going to appreciate it and see everything,” Sheets said Monday morning. TYLER KEPNER LEADING THE LEAGUES Major League Baseball centralized the American and National League offices a few years ago, further diluting the identity of league affiliations. But there are old-liners who remember, and each league has a ceremonial president for the All-Star Game.

The A.L. honoree is Jackie Autry, the widow of the longtime Angels owner, Gene Autry. Her National League counterpart is Phillies chairman Bill Giles, whose father, Warren, presided over 23 All-Star Games as N.L. president — winning 19. TYLER KEPNER UGGLA PRAISES METS Although much of the talk Monday concerned a stadium in the Bronx, the Florida Marlins slugger Dan Uggla also had his mind on a team in Queens.

The Mets entered the All-Star break riding a nine-game winning streak, edging past the Marlins into second place in the National League West. Even though the Mets are still a half-game behind the first-place Philadelphia Phillies, Uggla said they looked like the stronger competition.

“I think they’re the team to beat coming into the second half,” Uggla said. “They’re hot right now. They’re playing good baseball. The Phillies are still on top and obviously both us and the Mets are gunning for them right now. But a team that hot, it’s scary.” ALAN SCHWARZ

PAPELBON VOTES FOR PAPELBON If Jonathan Papelbon of the Red Sox was managing the A.L. All-Star team, the decision about who should close the game would be easy. Papelbon said that he would choose himself over the Yankees’ Mariano Rivera.

Of course, Terry Francona, Papelbon’s manager and the man guiding the A.L., has hinted that he will use Rivera as the closer. Rivera has 466 career saves, is considered the best closer ever and is at his home stadium.

“If I said, ‘Oh, no, I want to let Mariano do it,’ well, then that’s not the competitive nature of Jonathan Papelbon,” Papelbon said. “But, at the same time, I understand what it’s about. And I understand putting my time in in major league baseball and what it means to me and what the game means to me.” JACK CURRY

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page D4 of the New York edition with the headline: Hamilton Delights, but Morneau Prevails in the Derby. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe